He lost me almost right away when he said critics of the bills were exaggerating their effects. He obviously doesn't understand what was in the original version of SOPA. They were truly horrible bills. Tampering with DNS was also not part of the DMCA.

He also seems to confuse opponents of SOPA / PIPA with being pro-piracy. This is not the case, as Jimmy Wales has stated.

I also don't think many people are proposing that we simply do nothing now that SOPA and PIPA seem to be defeated for now.

The problem was that SOPA and PIPA were drafted without input from the tech sector (which was partly the tech sector's fault). This whole thing is a giant wake up call to both sides. I believe that better laws can be written to go after pirates, but you can also do so without tampering with the free flow of information on the internet.

His recommendation is nothing new, won't work and would cause more harm than good.

First, lobbying and campaign contributions are a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. The chaos and damage caused by McCain/Feingold is still being unravelled.

Second, it is established law going back to well before the founding of America that corporations are groups of people who do not lose their rights or responsibilities just because they form themselves into corporations. Corporations are not an "it," Corporations are a "they." Corporate speech (campaign contributions, lobbying, etc.) is protected the same way as is the Sierra Club's, AARP's or NRA's. In other words, as a group of people with common interest expressing their preferrences regarding laws, regulations and elections. You can do it too. Just did, actually. Congress has no authority to choose which corporations may and may not be politically active, nor may Congress prevent corporations from being politically active.

None of this means Congress won't try to take over campaign financing again. But as has been the result every time, what comes out of Congress is an incumbent protection act. There is little enough turn-over in Congress as it is. Anyone think Congress would pass a bill that opened up elections? If Congress put themselves in charge of financing elections (What is mis-named Public Campaign Financing is really just Congress using tax dollars to re-elect themselves.) there would even less turn-over in Congress than today.

Theft of private property is a moral problem. If everyone thinks stealing is justified, nothing, including a Police State, can prevent theft. The Soviet Union was a Police State. Privacy was unknown and wanting to be alone was considerd suspicious activity (Russian doesn't even have a word that translates as "privacy." The Soviet Union is still called a Kleptocracy, meaning that, from government officials on down, everyone stole and it was an expected and accepted way of life. In Russia today, the police still openly stop traffic to conduct random shakedowns for money. Happened to me, or rather the driver of my car.

No effort to stop online piracy will prevent anyone who wants to steal from stealing. When my dad lived in Italy under Mussolini the police were everywhere all the time. The pick-pockets still operated freely. Pretty soon, every move we make online will be tracked, stored and data-mined by the government for suspicious or illegal activity. But online pirates have already promised they keep stealing. They will.

Whew! Sorry about that.

Brian wrote:

An interesting piece by an internet startup founder. He
brings up the issue of big money in govt. policy
making:

Yeah, I don't think we need a new Bill to take on certain entities pirating certain media. Let them go through the regular legal channels already in place I say.

I equate this proposed Bill to the formation of the Dept of Homeland Security. That was just a knee-jerk reaction to a terrible event. There was no reason to expand the government when we already had agencies / departments in place that could've handled the issues.

I think the point is that iTunes changed the music industry, and is making money for Apple and the music industry, even in the face of declining sales overall. Are these declining sales due to piracy? Possibly. Would there be more piracy if iTunes didn't exist? I guess the Wall Street Journal doesn't think so.

And yet, on the MPAA’s official blog two days ago, Dodd, posting as “Senator Chris Dodd,” called the blackout by Wikipedia and Reddit “an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power.”

Another point is that Apple twisted the music industry's arm and got them to remove DRM from the music in the iTunes store. I still have a handful of mp3's I got from an early version of iTunes with DRM. They suck. Every time I build a new computer or swap out a hard drive, I have to "re-register" them. I would never buy another MP3 with DRM on them (and this doesn't imply I would pirate either).

The movie industry hasn't quite caught onto this yet. We are still living with encryption, unskippable fake FBI warnings, region codes, and laws that threaten me if I try to circumvent these things.

The same issue exists with computer games. Some game publishers put so much DRM onto games that screw up your computer that they are unplayable. Or you have to play with an internet connection, even if the game doesn't require it. Or you have to join their stupid online services. Only Valve and Steam seem to get this right.

The point is that all these measures are punishing only the people who play by the rules and buy the products. None of the inconveniences and headaches exist on the pirated versions.

So perhaps these are the reasons piracy is going up? But still, I don't know if that is widely accepted or not. I've searched for data and I seem to mostly get opinions. The sales are definitely declining, but I don't know if that necessarily implies piracy is up. I stopped buying PC games with DRM (above and beyond Steam), but I don't pirate. So that is a lost sale. I would buy more if there wasn't DRM and these heinous practices going on.

His recommendation is nothing new, won't work and would
cause more harm than good.

First, lobbying and campaign contributions are a form
of speech protected by the First Amendment. The chaos
and damage caused by McCain/Feingold is still being
unravelled.

Second, it is established law going back to well before
the founding of America that corporations are groups of
people who do not lose their rights or responsibilities
just because they form themselves into corporations.
Corporations are not an "it," Corporations are a
"they." Corporate speech (campaign contributions,
lobbying, etc.) is protected the same way as is the
Sierra Club's, AARP's or NRA's. In other words, as a
group of people with common interest expressing their
preferrences regarding laws, regulations and elections.
You can do it too. Just did, actually. Congress has no
authority to choose which corporations may and may not
be politically active, nor may Congress prevent
corporations from being politically active.

None of this means Congress won't try to take over
campaign financing again. But as has been the result
every time, what comes out of Congress is an incumbent
protection act. There is little enough turn-over in
Congress as it is. Anyone think Congress would pass a
bill that opened up elections? If Congress put
themselves in charge of financing elections (What is
mis-named Public Campaign Financing is really just
Congress using tax dollars to re-elect themselves.)
there would even less turn-over in Congress than
today.

Theft of private property is a moral problem. If
everyone thinks stealing is justified, nothing,
including a Police State, can prevent theft. The Soviet
Union was a Police State. Privacy was unknown and
wanting to be alone was considerd suspicious activity
(Russian doesn't even have a word that translates as
"privacy." The Soviet Union is still called a
Kleptocracy, meaning that, from government officials on
down, everyone stole and it was an expected and
accepted way of life. In Russia today, the police still
openly stop traffic to conduct random shakedowns for
money. Happened to me, or rather the driver of my car.

No effort to stop online piracy will prevent anyone who
wants to steal from stealing. When my dad lived in
Italy under Mussolini the police were everywhere all
the time. The pick-pockets still operated freely.
Pretty soon, every move we make online will be tracked,
stored and data-mined by the government for suspicious
or illegal activity. But online pirates have already
promised they keep stealing. They will.

Whew! Sorry about that.

Brian wrote:

An interesting piece by an internet startup founder.
He
brings up the issue of big money in govt. policy
making:

Whether you believe corporations have rights or not, I think we can still have a debate about how much money is being thrown around in congress right now that get bills created that should not pass a peer review.

What happened on the SOPA / PIPA blackout day is not a parallel to corporations. What happened was some 10 million (!) individual people contacted their representatives through emails, faxes, and phone calls. They didn't give them money. If the public stays focused like this and is educated on topics, then this type of behavior will reduce the effects of the big money. That was the point of Senator Wyden's opinion piece.

Brian, don't get me wrong. I have huge problems with how much influence big money has in our government. However, I also acknowledge that labor unions are the exact same monster. They throw lots of money around in order to influence government to sway with a populous that is not usually in agreement with the rest of the tax payers.

Anybody try this year to upload a video to youtube & have youtube reject it due to copyright infringement ?

I made a 40 second goofy video, not surf related, to show to a few co-workers. For background music, I used part of a song from a cd.
Shortly after it was uploaded, youtube said my vid has copyrighted material from emi. Nobody besides me can view it.

There are lots of videos on youtube with copyrighted music & video.
I guess youtube only checks recent videos, right after they upload.

Anybody try this year to upload a video to youtube & have youtube reject it due to copyright infringement ?

I made a 40 second goofy video, not surf related, to show to a few co-workers. For background music, I used part of a song from a cd.
Shortly after it was uploaded, youtube said my vid has copyrighted material from emi. Nobody besides me can view it.

There are lots of videos on youtube with copyrighted music & video.
I guess youtube only checks recent videos, right after they upload.

If you think the background music comes under "fair use" you can challenge youtube about it. I say challenge because they'll hit you with a bunch of worrying legal stuff before letting you click the "fair use" check-box.